


this christmas eve / let me give you all of me

by grammarkid



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, but i figured i'd post it here too, but i think that's p much it so yeah, i wrote this for my tumblr followers, it's super sweet and v fluffy and wayyyy too long, like if that doesn't tell u anything about me idk what will, like it's way way way way way way way way way way way too long, like the middle scene specifically but all of it tbh, lmao i'm sorry i'm bad at tagging, oh and they kinda maybe kiss??, that's all i got folks, the christmas fic that no one asked for!!, this is the fluffiest fluff of which i am capable, this was originally supposed to be 3k and it ended up 13k
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-16 19:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13060749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grammarkid/pseuds/grammarkid
Summary: Lena invites Kara over for Christmas Eve, and she's absolutely heartbroken when Kara declines, even though she understands that Kara has prior obligations. She resigns herself to a long night alone, but she comes to learn that Christmas miracles do happen – even for Luthors.(Also known as: I have a bad habit of writing really, really long one-shots that... don't usually stay one-shots for long??)





	this christmas eve / let me give you all of me

**Author's Note:**

> Let's pretend that this happens between the end of S2 and the beginning of S3, except Mon-Douchebag never existed, Winn still works at Catco, and Lena still technically only owns L-Corp. Um, yeah, I don't know, I think that's everything worth mentioning?
> 
> *Let's pretend that Chien Na Wei isn't evil on this Earth...
> 
> Also, a special thanks to my pal Poppy for looking over this for me! She's hecka great and she had to listen to me scream about this for days, so the credit goes to her. The only reason this got finished is because she threatened me with physical violence.

Lena has been debating how to go about this for nearly a week now. There’s nothing she wants more than to spend the holiday with Kara, but she hasn’t quite been able to figure out the best way to ask her. Tormented by her own uncertainties, she’d agonized over it for hours, waffling back and forth between the the conviction to ask her directly and the decision not to ask her at all. After all, Kara has a whole ensemble of people who adore her, who have known her longer – shouldn’t she spend the holidays with them instead?

But tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, and Lena can’t bring herself to let the opportunity pass without trying. She has to ask.

As Kara lifts her bag from the floor, prepared to depart, Lena finally forces herself to speak. “Oh, Kara, before you go.” 

Kara turns with a ready smile, one that spurs the pulse fluttering in the hollow of Lena’s throat into a delicate quiver. 

“I was wondering if you’d like to get together tomorrow night,” she asks, affecting an air of confidence that she doesn’t feel she truly possesses. Strangely, Kara’s relaxed posture begins to stiffen as soon as she voices the question, but she's committed to it now, and she feels compelled to see it through. “I thought maybe we could celebrate the holiday – away from work for once.”

For a short moment that feels like an eternity, Kara remains motionless. When her face falls, Lena’s heart drops right along with it.

(It’s her own fault, really. She’s waited too long. She knows it immediately, irrevocably.)

“Tomorrow?” Kara echoes, her voice a low hush. Though she twists the strap of her bag between her fingers, searches for words like she’s contemplating what her answer will ultimately be, Lena already knows that she’s going to decline. “I-I – I would love to, Lena. I really, _really_ would, but I –” She pauses to bite her lip harshly. “There’s this _thing_ that I –” Frowning, she sighs. “I kind of… already…”

Lena tries not to let herself think of it as rejection. “You have prior obligations,” she supplies. “Of course. I should’ve expected that.”

Despite Lena’s effort to will every ounce of negativity out of her voice, Kara appears devastated by the reality of her own confession, her brow furrowed, the strap of her bag strangled in her fist. Her eyes seek out Lena’s across the distance; there is a plea in them that she doesn’t voice, but one that Lena knows. It’s the same one that clouds her eyes whenever she has to vanish without explanation. 

'Please, don’t be upset.'

“I’m really sorry, Lena.” 

Lena isn’t upset, and she knows that Kara’s apology is sincere. The fact that she hasn’t already blurted out what she’s doing tomorrow suggests that it’s got something to do with the part of her life that Lena isn’t supposed to know about, so she doesn’t push for details.

“I would cancel everything if I could, but…”

“No, no,” Lena objects. “You’ve already made plans, and I couldn’t bear to steal you away in good conscience.” She tries to be gracious about it, forces her lips to form a warm, supportive smile, because the depth of the crease in Kara’s brow makes her stomach uneasy. The last thing she wants to do is make Kara feel guilty. “Don’t apologize. It’s my own fault for waiting so long to ask you, I suppose.” 

“Well, what about Christmas Day?” Kara suggests, baring a smile that possesses all the sudden, luminous intensity of sunlight parting a sky’s expanse of clouds. “We’re all getting together at my place around two o’clock – um, me, obviously, and Alex, Lucy, James, and Winn and Hank. Even Eliza is coming! It’s going to be this half-party, half-family get-together thing. I’d really love it if you came.” 

As Lena forces herself to produce yet another a smile, she realizes that they’re becoming increasingly hard to muster. “Thank you for inviting me, Kara, but I won’t be in town, unfortunately. I’ll be flying into Hong Kong to close a deal with a newly acquired client.”

“On Christmas?” Kara asks. Her voice is small, and there’s a pout in it that is more adorable than it has any right to be. 

If Lena weren’t so disappointed, she’d probably swoon over it a bit. As it is, she has to swallow her despair just to speak.

“Well, Christmas isn’t widely celebrated in China, and she’s a busy woman. It’s the only time we’re both available to meet in person.” 

Even as she says the words, she wants nothing more than to retract them, cancel her flight, and accept Kara’s invitation. If it weren’t such a big opportunity for L-Corp, she would do just that, without any hesitation whatsoever, but she has spent the past few months attempting to convince the most successful businesswoman in Asia, Chien Na Wei, that a partnership with L-Corp is truly a sensible business decision, and she can’t allow the opportunity fall through. As much as she wants to throw caution to the wind, she can’t.

“Right,” Kara says quietly, her eyes dropping to study the squares of tile that separate them. “Um, okay.” She sighs, and Lena feels the sentiment resonate in her soul. “Wow. I can’t believe – it completely slipped my mind to ask you ahead of time – I just thought I’d –”

(It’s something reminiscent of a divine tragedy – a lesson in the devastating nature of bad timing.)

“I can’t believe I won’t see you on Christmas,” Kara murmurs quietly. 

Lena’s heart gives a sympathetic throb, one that aches in every beat that follows. “I’m sorry, Kara.” 

“No, I can’t expect you to apologize. You’ve got a business to run, and _I_ –” She cuts herself off with a sigh. “I’m just – I wish I could –”

“Kara, you don’t have to explain,” Lena soothes. She can’t stand to watch Kara beat herself up, so she tries to lighten the mood, forces her vocal chords to produce the appropriate pitch for an emotion that she doesn’t really feel. “I’ll be back on the twenty-seventh,” she says brightly. “We can have our own belated Christmas once I get home. I’ll leave my tree and lights up, and we can watch all of your favorite Christmas films. I can arrange dinner if you’d like. I’ll even do my best to procure you your very own chocolate pecan pie.”

At last, Kara surrenders to the faintest hint of a smile. “A whole pie just for me?”

“Just for you,” Lena promises.

“I guess that’s our only option. It’s something, at least.”

Lena forces one last smile. “The twenty-seventh then?”

“The twenty-seventh,” Kara agrees.

Lena’s aching at the thought before Kara has even hugged her goodbye.

//

The next day is rough, to say the least. 

Working on Christmas Eve hasn’t bothered Lena in years. It’s always been expected of her as a Luthor, and that pressure didn’t ease a bit when she assumed her role as the CEO of L-Corp – but now that Kara has come into her life, bringing with her brightness and spontaneity and joy, it seems an unnecessarily cruel punishment that they should be kept apart by something so mundane as _work_. 

For the majority of the day, she’s scatterbrained and daydreaming, unable to focus for more than a few minutes at a time. She labors over the same handful of charts and spreadsheets for an hour, then moves on to flip through disgruntled complaints from her board of trustees about the ‘absurdly large’ charitable contributions she’s made in the last fiscal quarter. She doesn’t retain a word of it, but she’s fairly certain that she managed to send out a reply, something reminiscent of, ‘It’s my company, Bert, I can do what I want.’

She checks her phone so many times before ten o’clock that she forces herself to turn it off, though it doesn’t help all that much.

She’s so distracted that she forgets about lunch entirely. It’s nearly three in the afternoon by the time she realizes she’s missed it, too late to order anything without spoiling her dinner. Instead, she snacks on a cookie from the dessert basket that Kara had popped in to deliver earlier in the week. It’s a bittersweet moment, a bit wistful, because looking at the beautifully crafted display just reminds her of how Kara had stuttered and blushed and nearly dropped it when she missed the edge of Lena’s desk the first time she tried to set it down. (Supposedly, she had seen it in the window of a little bakery downtown and just had to get it, because she thought that Lena might like it. _Supposedly_ , Lena maintains, because there was no label of any kind on the packaging, or anything suggesting that it had been made by a company actively seeking business, and when she asked for more information about it, Kara conveniently couldn’t remember what it was called. Or what street it was on, what shops were nearby, how much she’d paid, etcetera. For two minutes straight, she could only babble on nervously about what a _crazy coincidence_ it was that the vast majority of the ‘assortment’ in the basket was comprised of amaretto shortbread cookies – Lena’s absolute favorite. It was quite honestly one of the least successful lies Kara has told to date, but Lena couldn’t bring herself to fault her for it.)

That, essentially, is the extent of her productivity for the rest of the day. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. She tries to work, fails spectacularly, tries _not_ to think about Kara, fails even more spectacularly, shakes herself into focus, and then does it all over again.

As the hours slip away, it becomes increasingly hard for her to ignore the gloomy, single-serve stormcloud that’s been hanging over her since her conversation with Kara yesterday. It’s one thing to be alone on Christmas Eve, but the thought of spending Christmas day on a plane to Hong Kong, suffering with the knowledge that Kara had invited her over, had _wanted_ her there, and had looked so completely devastated when Lena declined, despite their plans to reschedule – well, that’s not her idea of a happy holiday at all.

Her Christmas spirit hits a new low around six o’clock, and she gives up on trying to get any work done. Although she had sent Jess home before noon, she couldn’t bring herself to leave the office any earlier than usual, and the velvet blanket of evening has fallen over National City long before she finally slips past her front door and into the familiar stillness of her home.

All she wants to do is curl up in bed with a gallon of Scotch, but she can practically hear the echo of her mother’s voice lecturing her over her behavior, as she often did in Lena’s youth. Because, she’d say, ‘It simply isn’t _becoming_ of a Luthor to mope, Lena, darling.’ 

As much as Lena would love to do exactly that, purely out of spite if nothing else, she hates flying with a hangover, and the flight to China isn’t a short one, so she decides to keep away from the liquor cabinet. She showers instead, throws on a pair of leggings and a thick sweater, then forces herself to get dinner started. It’s nothing fancy, but she’s got to eat something after she skipped lunch – or so she’s been told. (By Kara. Multiple times.) While the chicken is searing in a pan and she’s waiting for the water to come to a boil, she stretches over to flip on the small television mounted on the kitchen wall. It’s too quiet and she’s in dire need of a distraction.

At first, the TV does little to help mitigate the oppressive silence. She’d muted it several days ago and now she can’t recall where she left the remote. Eventually, however, the news bulletin scrolling across the marquee at the bottom of the screen catches her eye.

“Local Children’s Hospital Receives Super Christmas Eve Surprise,” it says, and Lena just knows.

Even though the camera is focused on NCTV’s lead anchor and she can’t hear a thing, she _knows_. 

Kara.

She almost knocks the frying pan right off the stove in her haste to search the countertops and drawers for the remote. By the time she locates it behind the breadbox, seizes it, and finally unmutes the audio, they’re rolling live footage of the hospital, and then Lena sees her. She’s absolutely _radiant_ , as always, with an oversized Santa hat perched precariously on her head and an enormous red coat thrown right over her full supersuit regalia, and she’s laughing without restraint as she hugs three children to her chest at once.

_“As you can see behind me, Christmas is in full swing here at the National City Children’s Hospital…”_

The reporter broadcasting live from the scene continues, but Lena tunes him out completely. Everything narrows down to Kara.

She must have arrived at the hospital some time ago, because the network has already cut together a short montage of her endeavors thus far, showcasing raw footage of her handing out gifts from a comically large sack of presents, flying the children up to the ceiling to retrieve the tiny red and blue parcels that had been attached there, and even mesmerizing a group of older kids playing dreidel by spinning it so fast that they were able to collectively count to thirty, chanting it out loud, before it even began to wobble.   

It returns to a live broadcast as she gathers several older children around a small table and perches herself on the back of one of their miniature chairs. She’s singing a Christmas carol that Lena doesn’t recognize, one that doesn’t even sound like it’s in English, but the children seem familiar with it, and they all sing along with her as she sketches impressively detailed illustrations with half-sharpened colored pencils and makes them little origami instruments. It only takes her a few seconds to make something for every child in the room, which only adds to the spectacle of it all. (The reporter’s predictably cheesy comment doesn’t even register in Lena’s mind.)

For a long moment, Lena just stands there in the middle of her kitchen, smiling like a fool. She’s so captivated by Kara’s _goodness_ that she allows the chicken to burn and the pasta to overcook, and she hardly even notices.

The crushing weight of disappointment that has been suffocating her all day has begun to disperse, and she feels like she can breathe again. She’d been trying so hard to make it through the day on the single, simple conviction that Kara had a good reason to decline – and she was right. Kara had temporarily broken Lena’s heart because she had already devoted herself to the act of bringing joy to the hearts of countless others, and, suddenly, Lena is _grateful_ that she did. She’s _glad_ Kara remained committed to her intentions, because one look at the mirth and happiness and, yes, hope, on those children’s faces is enough to convince her that it was worth it.

And Lena… Lena can’t help but to fall a little bit more in love with her.

Once she’s gotten her dinner started for the second time, she digs her cellphone out of her purse and turns it back on. She’s prepared to wish Kara a happy holiday, to say it and mean it, but her phone begins buzzing insistently before she can even touch the Messages icon. A flood of texts that she has missed throughout the day come rolling in, one after the other. Nineteen of them, to be exact. 

Each and every one of them is from Kara. Lena bites her lip as she scrolls through them, clutching her phone like it’s a precious gift.

(10:21 am) Good morning! Merry Christmas Eve! 

(10:21 am) Alex says it’s too early to say that, but I don’t care. She’s just a Grinch.

(10:44 am) I hope you don’t work too hard today. Take it easy, okay? For me. :)

(11:03 am) Attachment: 1 Image  
_It’s a candid photo; James is lifting Winn clear off the ground and onto his shoulder to hang something above the door to James’ office._

(11:04 am) I don’t have the heart to tell them that’s holly, not mistletoe. 

(11:42 pm) Remember to eat something!

(1:17 pm) You forgot to eat, didn’t you?

(1:17 pm) I thought you might. I’m pretty sure your phone’s off.

(1:17 pm) It’s a good thing I got you all of those cookies, I guess!

(1:54 pm) Jess told me you sent her home early. Please don’t work too late. It’s Christmas Eve!

(2:42 pm) I’m going to call Marshall and make him tell me what time you finally leave the office.

(4:39 pm) It’s almost five o’clock and I’ll have you know that Marshall still hasn’t me called yet. 

(5:04 pm) Lena, go home! Soon! Please!

(6:13 pm) LENA LUTHOR

(6:13 pm) IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE

(6:14 pm) YOU CANT JUST WORK UNTIL SIX OCLOCK ON CHRISTMAS EVE

(6:32 pm) Now that you’re home, will you do me a favor? Relax. Try to have a good night.

(6:32 pm) Make a nice dinner, watch some old movies, put on silly PJs. (I know you have some!)

(6:40 pm) Merry Christmas Eve, Lena. I’m really sorry I can’t be there with you. I miss you. 

Some may find it a bit alarming to be on the receiving end of such a rapid barrage of messages, but Lena has long grown accustomed to Kara’s predisposition to double- and triple-text. That, coupled with her own predisposition to shut off her phone when she’s busy or anxious, has already taught her that she ought to expect something of the sort whenever she turns it back on – yet it always comes as the most pleasant surprise. She absolutely adores the little rush that floods her belly each time her phone buzzes in her palm. 

Although she’s only just now receiving Kara’s messages, long after they were intended to reach her, their inherent significance hasn’t been diminished in the slightest. She cherishes each and every letter, because they only serve to reaffirm how much Kara really cares and how well she truly knows her. (She managed to predict that Lena would forget to eat lunch _and_ that she’d convince herself that a cookie was a suitable substitution. That’s a pretty impressive call, even for Kara Danvers, investigative journalist extraordinaire.)

As much as Lena wants to spill her heart right onto the little digital keyboard taunting her, send back an essay-length response about how sweet Kara is and how much she appreciates all of her kindness, it’s really too late to respond to all of the messages individually. Besides, Lena reasons, glancing back at the television, Kara’s obviously busy at the moment. She decides to keep it simple, sweet. 

(7:02 pm) Merry Christmas Eve, Kara. <3

//

After she’s finally gotten some real food in her belly, Lena is more than content to fulfill the plans Kara had proposed in her last few messages. (Barring the silly PJs, of course.) She spends the rest of the evening curled up on the sofa watching the annual marathon of classic Christmas films she often wasn’t allowed to watch when she was younger. Although her only company is a glass of wine, she’s genuinely unperturbed by how her night has turned out. She thinks of all the children who got to experience a little bit of Christmas magic, and she’s satisfied in the knowledge that Kara is out doing what she does best, bringing hope and light to those who need it. 

That’s how Lena ends up bundled up in a huge blanket, giggling through the last half of _The Santa Clause_ as she permits herself a slice of cheesecake that she probably ought not to have, but why not? She doesn’t even force herself to get up and immediately wash all of the dishes as she usually does. Instead, she drains her wine and settles in to watch the entirety of _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_. 

(Even at twenty-four, some of her favorite moments still make her collapse into fits of undignified laughter.)

The credits have just begun to roll, and she has decided that it’s finally time to clean up – when there’s a knock at her door.

Her heart kicks up like there’s a street percussionist playing furiously in her chest, and she doesn’t even dare to hope, but… 

She wonders if it’s not too late for her own Christmas miracle.

She holds her breath as she approaches her door, counts to three, then opens it – and there’s Kara, standing in the foyer in a powder blue cableknit sweater and a thick oversized scarf patterned with flying reindeer, bearing a thermos in one hand and a small gift box in the other. Her hair is windswept, and it looks like she’s thrown it up into a messy bun in a hurry, but her eyes are soft behind her glasses. She’s got the most gentle smile on her lips, and Lena feels like she’s falling in love with her all over again, because she’s _here_. 

It’s somewhat ironic that she’s just finished watching _The Grinch_ , she thinks, because it strikes her suddenly that this must be what it feels like for a heart to grow three sizes – painful and breathtaking, raw and sweet and absolutely incredible all at the same time.

She’s certain that the enormous smile on her face is appropriately lovesick, but she can’t bring herself to care. “Kara.”

“Hi,” Kara breathes back. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late, and I know you have a flight in the morning. I should have called you, but I was afraid that you’d tell me not to come, and… I really wanted to see you.” She takes a breath and offers Lena a helpless, lopsided shrug. “All night, the only thing I’ve been able to think about is how I’m supposed to celebrate Christmas tomorrow without you, and then I realized that I can’t. It’s not going to feel like Christmas – for me, it’s not going to _be_ Christmas – without you. I had to come.”

Lena can’t even speak, wholly overwhelmed by the warmth of Kara’s sincerity and the simple fact that, despite everything, _she_ _came_.

In the absence of a response, Kara’s smile dims and she hastily begins to backtrack, tucking her thermos into the crook of her elbow and lifting a hand to fret with her glasses. “But, you know, if it’s _too_ late – I mean, if you were headed to bed soon or – I could just –”

The threat of Kara leaving finally breaks Lena of her paralysis and she fumbles to reassure her. “It’s not. I wasn’t.” She reaches out to curl her fingers around Kara’s elbow, squeezes as hard as she dares and tugs plaintively. “I’m so happy you’re here. Come in, please.”

Though Kara smiles, she only allows Lena to pull her half a step forward before she pauses. “Actually, um…” Her demeanor changes ever so slightly, until there is the faintest glimmer of mischief in her eyes, filling the gap between her natural sweetness and hopeful hesitance so comfortably that it twists Lena’s stomach in a knot. “I want to take you somewhere,” she says. “Would that be okay?”

Lena doesn’t even have to consider her answer, and doesn’t pretend to. She’s willing to go wherever Kara wants. “I’ll get my coat.”

Kara beams in response, but she still dips her head and flushes just the slightest bit when Lena squeezes her arm before releasing it.

Try as she might, Lena can’t contain her excitement. She practically skips down the hall to the closet, selects a coat without so much as glancing at it. When she returns to the door, Kara is still smiling, but she’s started to fiddle with the silver thermos in her hands.

“Where are we going?” Lena asks as they step into the foyer together.

“Um, not far,” Kara says sheepishly. “It’s closer than you might think.”

True to her word, and much to Lena’s surprise, Kara doesn’t lead her over to the driveway or down the long walk to the main gates. Instead, she places a hand at the small of Lena’s back and guides her around to the side of the house, where they come to… a ladder. 

It’s propped up against the lowest ledge on the northern side – where, if Lena remembers correctly, there is absolutely nothing but a vacant plane of concrete that was _supposed_ to become a modern rooftop terrace, eventually. While the house was being built, she was so preoccupied getting everything settled at L-Corp that she never quite got around to drawing up the final plans, so the contractors agreed to seal off the adjacent wall until she was ready to resume construction. Unfortunately, she never got around to that either, so she’s got a barren second-floor patio that’s inaccessible from the interior of the house and has no stairs to reach it on the exterior.

That fact often slips her mind. It’s incredibly easy to forget that her home is essentially unfinished, because she’s hardly ever there to begin with, but it seems that Kara has dreamt up some way to utilize the empty space, and also discovered a means of getting there.

Lena gestures to the ladder with a grin. “Is that a Rose Suchak ladder?”

(She’s not as oblivious to popular culture as most people think she is.)

“Unfortunately, no,” Kara laughs, then makes a show of squinting to see the sticker pasted along the side. “It’s a… Werner.”

“I suppose that will suffice,” Lena teases. She follows the structure up with her eyes, gazing at the edge of the roof curiously.

Kara offers an uncertain smile. “Don’t worry. I put down a towel at the top, so it’s not, like, chipping the paint or anything.”

“I couldn’t care less about the paint,” Lena laughs. She glances at Kara suspiciously, because she’s properly fidgeting now, tugging on the end of her scarf and biting her lip like she’s _nervous_. “What I’m more interested in, Kara Danvers, is what exactly you are up to.”

Kara shivers, but Lena knows it can’t be the weather. Must be nerves. “You’ll just have to see when you get up there,” she counters.

Lena approaches the ladder first, at Kara’s insistence. Her fear of heights is blissfully absent as she begins to climb, likely because she knows that Kara would never let her fall, regardless of her determination to keep the other half of her identity a secret. She’s almost completed the climb when she begins to wonder where Kara managed to get her hands on such a long ladder in the first place.

“Oh, but – wait, close your eyes before you get to the top!” Kara calls up to her at the last second.

“That doesn’t sound very safe,” Lena laughs, but she stops climbing to await further instructions.

“Shoot,” Kara huffs. Even a good fifteen feet off the ground, Lena swears she can hear her mutter, ‘This would be so much easier if I could just _fly_ you up there’ – but, as usual, she ignores it. Kara clears her throat. “Um, okay! Then just – yeah, cancel that, I guess.”

Lena glances down until she can meet Kara’s eyes. She strikes a rather charming silhouette in the grass below, gazing back up at her like the most delicately crafted Shakespearean romance figure. (A less tragic one, hopefully.) For just a moment, Lena allows herself to admire the way the light pouring out of the ground-level windows glows upon her cheek, gleams along the frame of her glasses. 

At last, she returns to the task at hand. “Where should I try _not_ to look?” she asks.

“No, forget I said anything,” Kara replies quickly. “Just get up there safely, please.”

Because Lena is hopelessly compliant when it comes to accommodating Kara’s desires, as trivial as they may seem, she does her very best to avoid ruining the surprise anyway. She fixes her eyes steadily on the rungs of the ladder, then stares down at her own feet as she gradually transitions onto the rooftop. Cast into shadow by the upper floors, the terrace-that-never-came-to-be is only _just_ dark enough to prevent her from catching sight of anything compromising out of her peripheral vision. As it turns out, she needn’t have worried so much. The moment she stands to her full height, Kara’s right behind her, both hands gently falling to cover her eyes.

Lena wishes she could convince herself that the breathless gasp of laughter that escapes her is nothing more than an affectation, but it’s real enough to make her heart race; Kara just has the uncanny ability to draw such fervent reactions out of her. Reveling in their intimate proximity, she lifts her own hands to circle Kara’s wrists, allows herself to press back ever so slightly against Kara’s chest.

It’s a risk she wouldn’t usually take – but it isn’t entirely improbable that she just happened to lose her balance for a moment, is it?

The fact that Kara doesn’t pull away only emboldens her. “You got up here fast,” she teases lightly. (Too fast for a human, at least.)

Kara’s nervous laughter, a devastating thing on its own, is twice as potent so close to her ear. “I’m… a really good climber?”

Lena is content to let it go unchallenged. On occasion, Kara’s powers allow her to do things that possess all the mystery and wonder of magic, and the result is often extraordinary enough to redeem whatever terrible excuse she comes up with to explain it away. For similar reasons, Lena doesn’t mention the fact that it’s thirty-two degrees outside and Kara’s hands aren’t even the slightest bit cold.

Not that she has a chance, because Kara’s already fumbling to move on. “Keep your eyes closed for just a few more seconds, okay?”

The simple request brings a smile to Lena’s lips. “Okay.”

Kara begins to release her, but she renews her hold at the last second. “Promise?”

God, now Lena’s _giggling_  – like some kind of smitten schoolgirl. “Yes, I promise!”

“Okay, I’ll try to be be quick.” (Lena has no doubt about that.) “One sec.”

Kara trots off, presumably to make a few final adjustments to the surprise she’s arranged. Once the sound of her retreating footsteps fades, however, Lena can’t hear a thing. She’s not sure whether that’s a sign that Kara’s being stealthy or just moving _extremely_ fast.

Finally, after a lengthy pause, Kara mutters quietly, “Well, that’s it, I guess.” She clears her throat and raises her voice. “Um, o-okay.”

It’s dreadfully adorable, and although Lena’s eyes are still closed, she can’t resist quirking a single brow playfully. “Are you sure?” 

“Not really,” Kara admits, then continues in a rush. “But this is literally killing me. I can’t wait any longer. Open your eyes. _Please_.” 

Lena does as Kara asks. The moment her eyes adjust, her heart stops.

At some point during her already busy night, Kara managed to transform Lena’s forsaken terrace into something both extraordinary and beautiful. There are several blankets laid out on top of one another to insulate the bare concrete, and a handful of pillows spread out artfully on top of them. The thermos Kara brought with her has been opened and set aside, and two matching mugs of cocoa are cooling just beside it. Near a tiny, portable firepit, she’s set out a basket stuffed to bursting with all of the ingredients for s’mores. But what really takes Lena’s breath away are the dozen or so gently flickering candles surrounding the blankets at various intervals – and the strings of lights, so many of them, soft pale white and multicolored alike, twinkling and fading only to shine once more, hanging in patterns so elaborate that Lena can’t even tell how Kara has managed to support them in midair on the primarily barren roof. 

When Kara mumbles, “Merry Christmas,” through a bashful smile and an unassuming shrug, Lena feels tears spring to her eyes.

She lifts her hands to cover her mouth, out of fear that she’ll sob out loud more than anything, but the tears recede quicker than she expects. For a long moment, she can do little more than stare in awe at the gorgeous scene Kara has pieced together on her rooftop. The fact that she put so much effort into organizing _all of this_ after already having spent the entire evening bringing hope and joy to hundreds of children leaves Lena absolutely speechless. It’s the single most incredible thing anyone has ever done for her.

“Oh, Kara…” She struggles to find her voice, forces it to sound even though the words aren’t there yet. “This is… It’s – it’s _lovely_.”

Kara glances over her handiwork with an uncertain grimace, then back at Lena. “You like it?”

“I love it!” Lena replies. Quite honestly, it’s a mystery to her how Kara could anticipate that she would dislike it in any way, but she’s not afraid to give her the validation she needs. “The cocoa, the firepit, the candles – and the _lights_ , my goodness. It’s all so beautiful.” 

It’s still fairly dim, but the aforementioned lights do wonders to illuminate the flush that begins to rise up Kara’s neck at the praise.

Lena can’t resist teasing her a little. “How did you manage to get all this up here? I’ve been home all night and I didn’t hear a thing.”

Kara rubs her palms against her thighs and forces a large cheery smile while rather obviously trying to think up a believable reply. “I was… quiet. Really quiet. Super quiet. Not – not _super_ quiet, obviously, but like – tiptoeing! The whole time, practically, which – do you know how difficult it is to tiptoe up a ladder?” A familiar look of panic crosses her face, one that Lena’s come to interpret as her brain actively willing her mouth to stop talking. In the single, solid beat of silence that follows, she crushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I’m also illegitimately exploiting, like, thirty-two percent of your total operational electricity at the moment. Sorry.”

(Lena feels a bit guilty for teasing her now. Just a little.)

“Kara, don’t apologize,” Lena soothes. She lays her hand gently on Kara’s arm, pleasantly surprised by the warmth radiating through the negligible fabric of her sweater. Though it begins as a simple gesture to ease Kara’s discomfort and reassure her that her effort is very much appreciated, no matter how much electricity it requires, she gradually finds herself leaning in closer. “This is incredible.”

At her touch, Kara relaxes until it almost feels like she’s leaning back into Lena in return. “Really?”

“Really,” Lena insists. She tugs Kara toward the carefully arranged spread of blankets and pillows that awaits them beneath the glow of the twinkling lights. Gradually, she lowers herself to her knees and then settles down, gazing in awe upon the sweet, unassuming splendor of the atmosphere Kara has created for them on her rooftop. “Thank you, Kara. This is a really wonderful surprise.”

Kara sinks down to sit next to her with much less finesse, dipping her head to conceal her soft, delighted grin. “I’m glad you like it.”

Their eyes meet for just a moment, before Kara glances away shyly.

Lena can’t help but think that this moment _means_ something. Just the two of them, here, now, alone beneath the lights and the stars that sear the afterimage of distant, glimmering constellations across the night sky – it’s intimate in a way that she’s been longing for, reaching for, aching for from the very first moment Kara Danvers waltzed into her life. They’re friends, she knows that, and Kara is simply too kind for her own good at times, she knows that too, but… still, there’s a part of her that hopes and hopes and _hopes_.

“There’s something a bit romantic about it, actually,” she admits in a wistful murmur and decides to let Kara take it as she will.

“I-is there?” Kara squeaks. Almost instantaneously, the color in her cheeks returns with a vengeance, rushing up her throat and into the tips of her ears. She giggles compulsively as she casts her gaze at the various objects around them, as though pleading with them for some kind of assistance, and Lena smiles. “I – I didn’t – I mean, that wasn’t necessarily – I-I was just, um –” She clears her throat, tugging at her scarf plaintively as she starts again, quieter. “But, I mean, if you _wanted_ to take it that way, that… would be cool. Like, better than cool, because I’d probably be so happy that I’d die, but –” She winces, squeezes her eyes shut. “But only if you wanted to.”

Lena is so captivated by how adorable Kara is that it takes her a moment to realize that this is actually happening. Kara is giving her the opportunity to take this unspecified gesture fraught with potential and turn it into something _real_ – and part of Lena wishes she could keep the charade going just a bit longer, flirt with the concept a little, have fun with it, but she can’t bring herself to do it. 

She’s so tired of wanting Kara that she’s desperate to skip ahead to _having_ her.

Delicately, she reaches out to place her hand over Kara’s. “I want to,” she says.

Kara opens her eyes, as though it startles her. “Oh,” she breathes. The corners of her lips twitch with half-formed, unspoken words, and Lena allows her all the time she needs to put them together; she loses herself in the way the little bulbs suspended overhead and the flickering tips of the candles around them play across the lenses of her glasses, glimmer in her eyes. At last, Kara finds her voice. “Oh, well, that’s… good. Because, to be honest, I was really struggling to come up with a heterosexual explanation for all of this.”

Lena bursts into a fit of laughter, can’t help it. Kara follows suit until they’re both laughing without reservation, still holding hands. 

“It was the candles, wasn’t it?” Kara jokes. “The candles gave me away.”

“I don’t think it was any one thing in particular,” Lena hedges, grinning. “But the candles certainly wouldn’t have helped your case.”

Gradually, things settle again, and they fall into a hush as their laughter fades. Kara gazes down at their joined hands and tentatively strokes her thumb along the length of Lena’s index finger, and the resulting thrill that quivers down Lena’s spine is so unreasonably powerful for such an inconsequential thing that it’s almost absurd. (She honestly can’t say she had expected anything different.)

“So… this is okay?” Kara asks quietly.

Lena squeezes her hand. “Absolutely.”

Kara smiles, one of those soft, slow, genuine marvels of a smile. “Oh, I almost forgot!” she gasps, then begins rooting around next to them with her other hand. “It’s not Christmas without…” Music – a slow piano rendition of a song that Lena knows but can’t name. Though it’s a slight adjustment, an infinitesimally small part of a much larger network of carefully constructed details, it succeeds in making this moment all the more romantic. Before Lena can begin gushing over how wonderful it is, Kara’s searching around them for something else, murmuring, “… and one more thing.” She produces the little box she had had with her at the door. “Your gift.”

The smitten sigh Lena gives is another one of those reactions she wishes she could claim was affected. “Kara, you shouldn’t have.”

“I know.” Kara shrugs lightly, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I wanted to.”

“Thank you,” Lena says. She accepts the box graciously, watches the holographic ribbon that secures the lid in place shimmer faintly in the shifting light. She glances down at their joined hands and bites her lip as she weighs her options. “Do I have to open it now? I don’t want to let go just yet.” (Oh, it’s mawkish and tawdry, almost embarrassingly so, but that doesn’t make it any less genuine.)

“What if I help you?” Kara suggests, and she shifts a bit closer to hold the box in a way that Lena can untie the bow with one hand.

“Alright,” Lena laughs, ignoring the weak flutter of something sweet in her chest. “But you should know ahead of time, I don’t think whatever’s in this box is going to top _this_.” She rubs her thumb over the hard ridges of Kara’s knuckles to really illustrate her point.

Kara ducks her head momentarily, but she rises to give her reply. “I am totally okay with that. I still want you to open it. Please?”

“Well, since you asked nicely.”

Lena delicately plucks at the bow securing the box shut, but she pauses dramatically to meet Kara’s eyes, eliciting a small giggle from her, before she removes the lid. Inside, resting on a pillow of plush blue velvet, there is a smooth silver pendant. It’s a type of locket, if the subtle clasp on the side is any indication. It takes a bit of effort to open it with one hand, but Lena manages, eventually, and – 

Lena’s breath catches in her chest.

Engraved on the inside of the locket is Kara’s family crest, the sigil of the House of El. 

Upon closer inspection, it looks like it could be a small button. She’s heard rumors of the fabled Super-Alert wristwatch currently in the possession of one James Olsen, so that isn’t a particularly shocking revelation. What surprises her is that Kara’s willing to reveal herself at all, especially after putting so much effort into maintaining the same facade earlier in the night. (Old habits, she supposes.)

When Lena turns to look at her, silently begging an explanation, Kara gives her a wobbly smile. “It’s not much of a gift, but I just – I wanted you to have it,” she says, her voice low and sure. “Everyone I… care about has one. So I can always be there if they need me.” 

Just like that, the last of the blurred lines and half-truths dividing Kara Danvers and Supergirl dissolve.

As far as secret identity confessions go, it’s fairly minimal, but Lena doesn’t require much more than that. Kara doesn’t actually need to _say_ ‘I’m Supergirl,’ because Lena has known – and she’s had her suspicions that Kara knew she knew – for some time. It’s enough, this quiet moment, simply because they’re acknowledging it openly and without any pretenses. Though it’s small, it’s all Lena needs.

“It’s about time you had one, too,” Kara goes on. “Especially with you going off to Hong Kong tomorrow.” She laughs, but her brow furrows with a frown soon after. “I mean, to be honest, people try to assassinate you a lot, and the fact that you’ll be halfway around world is kind of giving me anxiety. I’m pretty sure I’m as close to having a coronary as I can be, but… at least with this…” She shrugs and smiles, that faint glimmer of mischief returning. “It’s not the perfect solution, obviously, but – I mean, I can fly _really_ fast.”

“Which means you have no reason to worry,” Lena counters.

Kara smiles softly. “That can’t be helped. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Lena bites her lip, dropping her eyes to the locket again. It’s beautifully crafted, the metal smooth and polished, the Kryptonian sigil cut to sleek perfection. Briefly, she wonders where Kara had gotten it made, and how she had managed to get it done discreetly, but such things seem trivial in the immediacy of such a significant moment. She offers it back to her. “Will you help me put it on?”

Playfully, Kara leans back to gaze down at their hands, still pressed together on the blanket below. “But then I’d have to let go.”

“I’ll allow it for now,” Lena laughs.

Kara obliges without further protest, carefully withdrawing the necklace from its velvet pillow and setting the box to the side. Lena draws her hair aside, baring her throat, and Kara leans in close to fasten the clasp in place. Lena inhales slowly, breathes in the scent caught in the thickness of Kara’s scarf. It’s soft and sweet, and undeniably _Kara_. She cherishes it, finally free to do so, unburdened by the guilt that has accompanied such a simple pleasure for so long. Kara’s fingertips tease her skin, giving rise to a shiver that she has to fight rather hard to suppress and she isn’t entirely sure she manages to do so. Far too soon for her liking, Kara pulls back.

Lena touches the pendant with her fingertips instinctively. There is something elegant and refined in its simplicity. It’s long enough to conceal beneath a properly buttoned shirt, but sophisticated enough that she wouldn’t hesitate to show it off with a low-cut top.

Of course, when the locket is closed, Kara’s crest can’t be seen, but Lena _knows_ that it’s there, and she’s not prepared to deal with the swell of excitement that knowledge brings. It’s exhilarating. From this moment forward, she will bear Kara’s mark – not only as the inviolable seal that guarantees Supergirl’s protection, but as tangible evidence of the particular place that Kara occupies in her life. 

(A _locket_ , she reasons with a particular flutter of delight, is not the same thing as a wristwatch.)

“You can make all the excuses about my safety you want,” she murmurs, smiling, “but since we’ve established that this moment _is_ , in fact, romantic, I’m going to consider this the modern superhero equivalent of a fifties-era high school quarterback asking the girl he likes to go steady with him by giving her his letterman jacket.” She bites her lip playfully, just to watch Kara’s eyes dip down to look.

“That is… perfectly fine,” Kara mumbles. Though she hides her face under the guise of adjusting her glasses, Lena can see the tips of her ears burning pink. She rallies quickly, leaning back on her palms to observe Lena at a distance, but she frowns when she realizes that Lena is still toying with the pendant. “Is it okay? Is the chain too long? Too short? I can get a different length, another style –”

“Kara, it’s perfect,” Lena insists. She releases it at last, allows it rest naturally against her chest. It sits just millimeters above the swell of her cleavage, and she smirks in amusement. “If I didn’t know better, I might think you’d measured me whilst I was unaware.”

Kara gives a panicked, strangled sort of laugh. “N-no, I wouldn’t – I _didn’t_ – I mean, I probably _could_ , but – I-I’m gonna shut up now.”

Lena just takes her hand once more, smooths her thumb over Kara’s knuckles. “I mean it,” she says. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Kara tries to shrug it off, as she usually does. “Even if you didn’t want all of…” She ducks her head, gestures vaguely towards various elements of Lena’s surprise. “… _this_ to be, you know, romantic, I still wanted you to have that.” Little by little, her diffidence fades in favor of mirth, and she struggles to suppress a grin. “Because strictly platonic friends _totally_ give each other lockets, don’t they?” 

“Oh, all the time,” Lena vows. “I’ve gotten a locket from every girl I’ve ever known. I’ve been waiting on one from you for months.”

Kara laughs, her shoulders shaking with the effort it takes to restrain it. She carefully brings her other hand to rest on top of Lena’s, pressing it between both of her own, claiming it. As her laughter dwindles and she sobers, she toys gently with Lena’s fingertips.

“It was the simplest way I could think of to tell you who I am,” she admits.

“There’s certainly nothing ambiguous about it,” Lena chuckles.

“I wanted you to know before anything happened between us,” she says. She glances up briefly, meets Lena’s eyes with a blush, then hastens to clarify. “I mean, I know that you _knew_ , but I wanted to you to hear it from me before – um, before –” She grimaces, clears her throat and tries again. “I’m not trying to say that I’d just _assumed_ that something would eventually happen between us, like that’s the only reason I – no, that’s not it at all – I just, you know – I wanted to be sure you knew, if it ever _did_ happen. If it ever _does_.” 

(As endearing as her rambling is, Lena briefly considers stopping her to ask about that last part. Unless she’s mistaken, something is happening between them at this very moment, but she doesn’t get the opportunity to question it. Kara’s speaking much too fast.)

“I know we’ve already come to the conclusion that this _is_ supposed to be considered romantic and everything, but I still can’t be sure that you actually _like_ me. Do you? Yes? Maybe? Honestly, who knows?” Though it’s a convincing performance, complete with rapid gesticulations and an adorable furrow in her brow, the faintest quirk in the curve of her lips betrays her, and Lena begins to suspect that this has become more than nervous babble. “I guess it’s just one of those cosmic mysteries. I’ll forever have to _wonder_ if –”

“Stop!” Lena laughs, squeezing Kara’s hands in an attempt mitigate the light, bubbly sensation in her stomach. “Yes, I _like_ you!”

(She feels like she’s sixteen again, young and foolish, baring her heart beneath the starry winter sky. She feels warm and alive.)

As though Lena’s confession is the most pleasant surprise, Kara perks up. “You do?”

“I do,” Lena replies without hesitation. It feels _good_ to finally say it. “That’s not something you’ve got to trick me into admitting, you know.” Kara tucks her chin into the loose fabric of her scarf, cringing like she knows she’s been caught, but Lena just smiles and lets herself surrender to the gooey lovesick feeling flooding her chest with warmth. “Isn’t it painfully obvious how much I adore you?”

Resuming her careful exploration of Lena’s fingertips, Kara bites her lip against a shy smile and mumbles, “Not painfully.”

Lena fixes her with a knowing look. “Really? I’m sure anyone who’s ever seen me in a room with you would beg to differ.”

“Okay, fine, but at least you don’t have a sister who smirks all smugly to herself and makes snarky comments under her breath every time you so much as say my name,” Kara protests. “Alex has been teasing me about my crush on you forever. It’s literally torture.”

“My understanding of healthy family dynamics is rather tenuous at best, but… isn’t that what sisters are supposed to do?”

“No,” Kara huffs, pouting. “Sisters are supposed to let you talk about your crush and listen to you gush about how _gorgeous_ she is and help you plan how you’re going to try to make her fall in love with you –” Though her face is steadily flooding with color once more, she pushes on. “Which, by the way, Alex absolutely did _not_ do, like, ever. For the record, all of this was _my_ idea. She didn’t help at all, but that probably won’t stop her from telling everyone we know that she was the one who finally convinced me to ask you out.”

Lena uses Kara’s distraction as an opportunity to do some exploring of her own, gently tracing the veins on the back of Kara’s hands, the shapes of her knuckles, the lengths of her fingers. Kara watches on, stills and quiets as Lena maps the topography of her palms.

“I suppose everyone has grown tired of seeing me swoon whenever you’re near me,” Lena murmurs at last.

“And listening to me stutter and forget everything I want to say the moment I see you,” Kara replies softly. 

(It’s truly ridiculous how long they’ve been dancing around each other. This has been a long time coming.)

Lena glances up with a playful smile. “Well, they’re sorely mistaken if they think that I’m going to be any less affected by you now.”

“Right?” Kara laughs. “I’m going to be so obnoxious, I hope you know that. Fawning all over you, incessantly, literally all the time.”

“God, like that’s going to be a _bad_ thing?” Lena scoffs, but her face feels warm despite her composure. The thought of Kara doting on her in nearly any way brings with it a rush that she doesn’t think is particularly appropriate for a first date, so she doesn’t elaborate.

“I’m just –” Kara takes a breath as their laughter fades. “I’m really happy that… you feel the same way.”

Her sincerity echoes through Lena’s chest, makes it ache, and she has to squeeze Kara’s hands to remind herself to breathe. “Me too.”

Kara responds with a luminous smile that is slow and dazzling, giving way to those twin dimples that reside just beneath her glasses.  

“Well, now that we’ve gotten all that cleared up –” 

Quite suddenly, she vanishes. Lena has a split second to blink at the vacant spot on the blanket next to her before Kara’s back, settled in place like she’d never even moved. Her incredible speed is no less impressive in a sweater and a pair of pants than it is in her boots and cape. In fact, it’s even more delightful, because she doesn’t bother to affect the cool confidence she often exudes as Supergirl; she allows herself to rock in place, smiling exuberantly as she holds out another gift box, this one just slightly larger than the first.

“– I can give you your _real_ gift.”

“What do you mean ‘real’ gift?” 

Kara just smiles, gently but insistently pressing the box into her hands until she accepts it.

Lena handles it curiously. “What could possibly be so secret that you had to hide it away?”

“It’s not a secret,” Kara laughs. “I just wanted to set it aside. In case you decided you never wanted to talk to me again after you found out that I’ve been lying to you about my identity from the moment we met, obviously. So, worst case scenario, I was going to try to sneak it into your hotel room in Hong Kong and surprise you with it as the first part of my ten-step Beg Lena For Forgiveness Plan.”

Lena smirks, thoroughly intrigued by this ‘plan’ of hers. “What were the other nine steps?”

Inexplicably, Kara flushes. “Oh, they – well, I – uh, groveling, basically? Lots of groveling.”

Lena hums in return, unconvinced, but she decides to let it go for now. She toys momentarily with the springy coils of ribbon on the top of the second box. “You really didn’t have to get me another gift, Kara. You already know yours won’t be here until tomorrow.”

“I know, I know. Scheduled for delivery directly to my doorstep, which – Lena, I swear, if you spent more than a hundred dollars –”

Lena glances away, curling a strand of ribbon around her finger innocently.

“Lena! You agreed that you wouldn’t spend too much money on me!”

“I have no recollection of such an agreement.”

Kara sighs, narrowing her eyes. “If I have to chase you all the way to China to yell at you, I will.”

“You won’t have to chase me,” Lena murmurs, then allows herself a bit of sass. “I have a phone.”

Crossing her arms in a distinctly Supergirl sort of way, Kara glares. “Which is never actually _on_.” 

Lena has to try very hard to stifle a smile, especially when Kara’s facade of annoyance breaks.

“Come on,” she whines plaintively as she leans in close to nudge Lena’s shoulder gently with her own. “You can’t give me a hard time about getting you two presents when you probably spent an absurd amount of money on mine. Open your gift. It’s small, I promise.”

(To be fair, it wasn’t an _absurd_ amount of money… in a billionaire’s opinion.) 

Lena gives a playful long-suffering sigh, but she opens the box like Kara asks. 

Wrapped in a gossamer sheet of tissue paper, there is a translucent glass sphere no larger than the size of her palm. Within the glass, at a seemingly calculated set of intervals are five circular jewels that shine and glimmer like sapphires beneath the low, shifting light. 

Honestly, for a moment, Lena swoons, because she recognizes the shape of the jewels instantly. It’s Cassiopeia. 

On a particularly bad day, she had once mentioned to Kara that her favorite constellation was Cassiopeia. Because it’s one of the only circumpolar constellations in the northern hemisphere, it is visible in the night sky year round. As a child, whenever she was having a hard time – when Lillian was too coarse, Lex too distant, or her father too sick – she would sneak out onto the balcony and look up at the stars, and she knew that, as long as she could stop crying long enough to find Cassiopeia, everything would be okay. 

“Kara,” she breathes, clutching the box to her chest. “It’s beautiful. I love it.”

“I thought you could put it in your office,” Kara says. “You know, keep it on your desk, so you can see it whenever things get rough.”

Before Lena gets too swept up in another sudden, unwelcome swell of tears, she turns to catch Kara in a tight hug, and she holds on, clutching her tightly, until the thickness in her throat subsides enough to speak. “This is – it’s incredible, Kara. Thank you so much.”

Though Kara’s arms remain securely around her waist, she gives a hesitant, timid shrug. “In case you decided you hated me, I wanted to get you something that would show how much I care about you, and… also, hopefully remind you how much you _didn’t_ hate me.”

“I could never _hate_ you,” Lena insists. She finally withdraws, blinking the last of the moisture from her eyes. “But you really had all of this thought out, didn’t you? The surprise, the gifts.” She lifts the beautifully crafted glasswork in her palm. “Even the backup plan.”

“I couldn’t help it. I’ve been daydreaming about this for a whole week.”

“Oh, you just knew I was going to invite you over for Christmas Eve?”

“No,” Kara says simply. “I had originally planned to do this tomorrow, at _my_ apartment. Once everyone started heading home for the night, I was going to ask you to stay for a while, bring you up to the roof and…” She trails off with a sweeping gesture directed at the lights and candles casting their delicate glow upon the two of them. “It was basically going to be this, but probably more candles.”

“And just how were you planning to sell a suitably heterosexual explanation for _that_?” Lena teases. “Surprising me with all this is one thing, but asking me to stay behind, specifically just to bring me up to your roof… I think that might have raised some questions.”

“I had a few excuses lined up,” Kara chuckles, then begins to tick them off on her fingers. “Like, ‘It’s our first Christmas together, so I wanted it to be memorable,’ obviously, and ‘If you listen carefully, you can hear the carolers down in the park _perfectly_ from up here,’ and ‘There was supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, but I guess I got the dates mixed up?’ You know, stuff I would totally say.” 

“Oh, those are good,” Lena laughs. “Whichever one you’d decided to go with, I probably would’ve believed you.”

Kara gives one of those goofy, lopsided shrugs of hers. “I’m actually kind of glad I didn’t have to try any of them.”

(Lena couldn’t possibly agree more. Everything is perfect, just the way it happened.)

//

They sit together drinking cocoa and making s’mores over the little firepit. (Lena eats a few, despite the cheesecake she’d had earlier; for once, she doesn’t allow the ghost of her mother’s voice to reprimand her for daring to indulge in them.) Kara, on the other hand, consumes more s’mores in an hour and a half than Lena’s probably eaten in her entire life, but she deserves them after all of her hard work tonight. While they look up at the stars, Kara drapes part of an extra blanket over their laps. Save for a few desperate attempts to keep molten chocolate from dripping onto their clothes, their hands remain pressed together in the liminal space between them.

It’s well past midnight now, and Lena’s flight leaves in a few hours, but she can’t bear the thought of bringing the night to an end. It’s honestly the most wonderful evening she’s ever had, and she’d willingly stay here with Kara until the sun began to rise if she could.

“You know,” she begins, once Kara’s finally had her fill of dessert, “you really didn’t have to do all this, especially if you were trying to impress me. Spending the evening with you would’ve been enough. The fact that you came to see me was romantic in its own right.”

“You must be operating under the assumption that I haven’t had to talk myself out of doing this kind of stuff for you every day since I met you,” Kara mumbles sheepishly, and some needy little part of Lena’s heart flutters at the thought of Kara pining for her all this time. Kara shakes her head, admitting a quiet breath of laughter. “This was the only time I thought I could get away with it – I mean, if you didn’t want it to be romantic.” Gradually, her voice lowers to a hush. “Besides, I… I really wanted to make up for yesterday.” 

As a slight pinch mars the flawless arch of Kara’s brow, Lena tilts her head curiously.

“I felt really bad about turning down your invitation,” Kara admits. “That was not fun, and it really hurt me to do it, but… I just…”

(Her ability to condemn herself for doing something _good_ truly is astonishing – and also a bit worrying at times.)

“Had to spend your entire evening making hundreds of children’s dreams come true instead?” Lena offers gently. 

Kara glances over at her, almost as though she’s surprised. “You… know about that?”

“I’m not an eremite, Kara,” Lena chuckles. “I do have access to the news, you know.”

“Fair enough,” Kara concedes. She mutters ‘eremite’ faintly under her breath with a slow smile, like she can’t believe that Lena would use such a word in casual conversation, but her slight frown persists, regardless, and she frets over the blankets with her free hand.

“You did a really wonderful thing tonight,” Lena insists, squeezing the hand beneath her own for good measure.

Kara shrugs it off. “Still,” she mumbles, and, incredibly enough, she’s _pouting_ now. “It killed me to say no to you.”

“I’ll admit,” Lena replies, “when you declined my invitation, I was a bit disappointed. Actually, I was _incredibly_ disappointed, but I also knew that you probably had something important planned. Then I saw you on TV, and…” She shrugs, trails off with a wistful sigh.

Kara watches her intently, her blue eyes soft and searching. “What?”

“It reminded me why I fell in love with you in the first place,” Lena admits, because there’s honestly no point to try and hide it now.

Kara dips her head to adjust her glasses, but Lena can see the faint indent of the dimple in her cheek; she knows that Kara’s smiling. 

“I was worried you might be mad,” Kara says, when she finally lifts her head once more.

“Mad?” Lena echoes. “No, no, I was… enchanted. Watching you with those children, I was captivated by you.”

Kara remains still, breathing shallowly, like she’s paralyzed by the idea that anyone could find _her_ captivating. 

Lena thinks back to how she had felt, standing there in her kitchen, hardly breathing as she witnessed what she knew in her heart to be of the most important things that Supergirl had ever done for the people of National City. (A small thing in comparison to saving the city from destruction, but a meaningful one to the children who suffer at the hands of things beyond even a superhero’s control.) How Kara could be surprised by Lena’s admiration is a mystery to her, because it is so _easy_ for her to fall back into that feeling of awe and adoration, even hours later, and it’s become a fairly unanimously held belief that Supergirl’s greatest strength is in her heart.

Although visiting a children’s hospital on Christmas Eve isn’t necessarily heroic, it’s proven again exactly what kind of hero Kara is.

“I was so distracted that I burned my dinner,” Lena says at last, only slightly embarrassed by the confession. 

Faintly, Kara smiles. “Did you really?”

“I did. Badly. I had to start it all over.”

“Sorry,” Kara mumbles, glancing away bashfully, but she looks entirely too pleased to be sorry. She lets the moment go still and quiet as they delicately tangle and untangle their fingers where their hands rest on her knee, and thus resumes Lena’s struggle to grasp just how it’s possible for a simple touch to feel so _good_. “Out of curiosity, how long have you known?” Kara asks. “About me, I mean.”

“I had my suspicions after I met you – well, both halves of you – for the first time.”

Apparently, whatever Kara was expecting, it wasn’t that. She looks thrown. “Really?”

Playfully, Lena quirks a brow. “How could I possibly mistake such a gorgeous face?” 

Kara reacts as though the simple compliment physically pains her, dropping forward to press her forehead against the back of Lena’s hand plaintively, emitting a subdued groan of embarrassment in the process. (Lena thinks that this sort of response will be occurring often in the coming days; the more she allows herself to compliment Kara the way she has always wanted to, the easier it becomes to do it. Only, she’s not sure it’s the right time to torment her with the full extent of her adoration just yet, so she lets it go for now.)

“But it really started to settle in around the time you arrived at my office on a flying bus, I think.”

Kara shoots upright with a horrified grimace. “ _No_ ,” she whines. “You actually heard me say that?”

“Of course I heard you,” Lena chuckles. “You were standing two feet in front of me, and you know I hang off your every word.”

Though Kara presses her free hand to her face, she fails to hide behind it. “Gosh, how did I ever manage to make you _like_ me?”

“Exactly like that,” Lena insists honestly. “By saying things like ‘I flew here on a bus,’ and fidgeting with your glasses and laughing too loudly whenever you were nervous. It’s unreasonably adorable, you know.” Kara shies away again, a low rumble of discomfort in the back of her throat, but Lena presses on. “When I first met you, I thought it was an act, a part of your disguise as Kara Danvers. Once I realized it wasn’t…” She shrugs helplessly, because she’s truly just as susceptible to it now as she was then. “I was done for.”

Kara stills again. Her gaze softens inexplicably and then she says, very quietly, “You said before that… Kara Danvers was your hero.”

“I meant that,” Lena replies. (It should come as no surprise to her by now, honestly.)

“I believed you,” Kara says. “Even though we hadn’t talked about my identity then, I had a feeling you knew, and it meant a lot to me. I’d been worried about that, to be honest.” She glances down at their joined hands to avoid Lena’s eyes, her voice dropping to a mere hush of words. “Before I was really sure that you knew, a part of me was worried that you didn’t, and that once you _did_ …” She shrugs faintly, but it does little in the way of implying nonchalance. “I guess I was afraid that Kara Danvers wouldn’t be enough anymore.”

Lena shakes her head, dipping down to Kara’s level until she’s forced to meet her eyes. “Kara Danvers is more than enough,” she says gently, but firmly. She hates that Kara still thinks so little of herself, that she bears the weight of the feelings of inadequacy that often result from being forced to live two separate lives. Kara Danvers is _worthy_ of love – regardless of whether or not she sometimes puts on a cape and risks her life to save the city. “For the past few months,” Lena murmurs softly, “it feels like she’s been… everything.”

Kara’s gaze is soft and incredulous, her eyes so blue that they almost seem to possess a luminance of their own. The exposed rooftop only affords them so much relative silence, subject to the cool sigh of the wind and the distant echo of life being lived within the city limits, but the world seems to fall to a hush around them. As the air between them thickens, anticipation floods Lena’s veins with all the immediacy and ecstacy of morphine. She feels as though there’s a hummingbird in her chest, its tiny wings beating frantically. 

Finally, Kara takes a breath. She swallows, licks her lips absently, and whispers, “She’d… really like to kiss you right now.”

Lena inches closer, unable to stop herself. “She can kiss me,” she whispers back, “if she promises to stop talking in the third person.”

“She promises,” Kara breathes, but cringes as soon as she realizes what she’s said. “I mean, _I_ promise.” She leans closer. “I promise…” 

And, finally, _finally_ , after months of longing and yearning and waiting and dreaming, their lips touch.

Lena sees the stars. Not the whimsical cartoon stars that so often appear in popular media, but _real_ stars – constellations and galaxies that she’s never imagined are born in a flash, emblazoned upon the back of her eyelids like Michelangelo himself painted them there. A whole universe of possibilities seems open to her now, and she’s certain that they are all within her grasp with Kara by her side.

Eventually the stars fade; some flicker out and some drift off like comets pulled into a distant orbit. Lena drowns in the depths of the darkness for a moment, gasping and breathless, weightless and heavy with wanting – but she’s not afraid of the sensation of being so totally and thoroughly overwhelmed. Kara’s lips are patient, and the hands on her own keep her warm, still, and grounded.

It would be so easy to give in, because she knows that she’s safe, Kara has her, she’s _safe_.

(As much as she would absolutely love to do that, this is still technically their first date.)

Finally, they part, though Lena’s not sure which one of them breaks the kiss. She thinks maybe she had mustered the strength to pull away from Kara’s devastatingly soft lips on her own, but that may entirely be a combination of wishful thinking and utter delusion.

Lena’s almost convinced she sees the stars again when Kara’s eyes flutter open to meet hers.

“Wow,” Kara breathes, and Lena can’t help the hot, needy part of her that preens at the realization that she almost sounds winded.

“Sorry,” Lena murmurs, similarly breathless. “I think I may have gotten a bit carried away…”

“Really?” A tinge of pink lights Kara’s cheeks. “It felt like I was the one getting carried away.”

Lena smiles, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “Maybe we both were.”

Kara presses back gently, nuzzles the tip of her nose against Lena’s. For a moment, Lena feels that tug in her stomach like they might kiss again, when Kara suddenly breaks into a brilliant, giddy smile. “I can’t believe you kissed me!” she giggles. “We kissed! Finally!”

“We did,” Lena chuckles. As the heat in her blood drains, she allows her head to fall to Kara’s shoulder with a content sigh. “ _Finally_.”

Kara shifts around to accommodate her there, wrapping one arm around Lena’s back and tilting her own head to rest against hers. 

They remain that way for a long moment, wrapped up together. The embrace feels nearly the same as it had that day in Lena’s office so long ago, but different in the slightest of ways. Kara’s hand is surer now, firmer, and Lena doesn’t feel guilty about pressing closer. 

Despite Lena’s determination to savor the moment and let herself indulge in Kara’s close proximity, her mind is a delicate whirlwind of thoughts. She wants to ask all of the questions she was unable ask without breaking their unspoken rules of secrecy. Are the lights in her office too harsh on the more sensitive cones of Kara’s eyes? Should she consider soundproofing the upper floor to dampen the tumult of the city below? How many cartons of potstickers does she _really_ need to order to satisfy Kara’s appetite? Should they spend more time outside, in the sun? She wants to ask about Krypton, about her family, whether or not her cousin still thinks she’s evil.

Only, she has so many questions that she doesn’t know where to start, and the longer she sits here, with her head on Kara’s shoulder, basking in her warmth, the more the crisp clarity between each question begins to blur. In fact, she’s gradually beginning to doze off.  

Soon, Kara’s turning her head to murmur, “You should probably be getting to bed soon.”

“Don’t say that,” Lena sighs. (She wonders if Kara had heard her heart beginning to slow.)

“I wish we could stay out here all night, but you’ve got a flight to catch in a few hours.”

Lena presses closer, buries her nose into the thickness of Kara’s scarf. “Mm. I’ll cancel.” 

“Oh, no you won’t.”

Suddenly, before Lena’s even aware that Kara’s moving, she finds herself in Kara’s arms. 

Well, she’s awake now. Being carried bridal-style by a superhero tends to do that to her.

“I can’t keep you up any longer,” Kara says. “You need to sleep for a few hours, at least.”

“I can sleep on the plane,” Lena protests. “It’s a long flight. I’ll be fine.”

“Lena, I know you. You won’t be sleeping, you’ll be working. All day.”

She allows a faint petulant huff out of propriety, but it’s difficult to be even the slightest bit upset when Kara is holding her so snugly against her chest – and also when she’s unequivocally right. “I think I may come to regret agreeing to date a _superhero_ ,” she grumbles.

Kara just laughs. “I’m sorry, but if you’re not going to take care of yourself, you leave me no choice but to do it for you.”

She starts off toward the edge of the roof and, without so much as a hitch, steps out into nothing but the air. Lena doesn’t feel so bad about the way she clings to Kara’s shoulders as they begin to descend. She’s allowed to do that now, and Kara just holds her tighter.

Once they touch down in the grass, Kara tosses her head back with a satisfied groan. “Ugh, that was _so_ much easier than the ladder!”

Lena giggles as Kara releases her and sets her gently on her feet, gazing up at her with a smile. 

She regards the way the moonlight catches on Kara’s glasses and shines upon her hair, circling the crown of her head with a glowing halo, and she is stricken once more by the recurring realization that Kara Danvers _truly_ is every bit the hero that Supergirl is. Even if they’d had to climb down the ladder normally, the fact that Kara even came to see her tonight, and that she’d put so much effort into surprising her and making her feel special – and even that she’s trying so hard to make sure Lena is rested enough for her trip – all of those things only serve to solidify the fact that Kara Danvers is the most incredible person she has ever had the fortune to meet.

A part of her still can’t believe that a _Luthor_ could be so lucky, and the swell of emotion the thought evokes takes her by surprise.

Her face must betray her, or possibly the stutter of her heart, because Kara tilts her head, and the confused crease between her brows returns. Even though Kara has literally just set her down, Lena presses up onto her toes to wrap her arms around Kara’s shoulders. 

Kara returns the embrace without hesitation. Her arms are warm and firm, but they yield at the slightest pressure. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Lena chuckles quietly, and she takes a breath as she finally draws back. “I just got a little overwhelmed for a second. Please, just bear with me.” She catches Kara’s hands lightly in her own once they slip from her waist. “This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

“Oh,” Kara murmurs, smiling bashfully. Lena feels the faintest tug against her hands, as though Kara might retract them to adjust her glasses or tug at her scarf, but she seems to decide against it and squeezes Lena’s hands instead. “I’m really glad you had a good night.”

“Of course I did,” Lena replies. “You’ve given me the most precious thing I’ve ever dared to hope for. _You_.” Kara bites her lip, and she touches her fingertips to the locket fastened around her neck meaningfully. It has long since absorbed the warmth of her skin and its smooth texture is already becoming a comfort to her. She thinks of the crest hidden inside and permits a fond smile. “All of you.”

At last, Kara does lift a hand to readjust her glasses. “Well, not _all_ of me,” she mumbles. “Not _yet_.”

Lena gasps sharply, scandalized by the uncharacteristically suggestive comment. “Kara Danvers!”

“Oh, Rao!” Kara squeaks. “I’m so sorry!” Mortified, she seizes her scarf with both hands and yanks it up to cover her face, clutching it there, so high that only her wide blue eyes are visible, peering nervously from behind the glasses that’ve been knocked askew on her nose. She continues apologizing in a muted, muffled panic. “I – I have no idea where that came from! I don’t usually – I mean, I –”

(Honestly, Lena hopes there’s _more_ where that came from. In the future, at least.)

“You’re not wrong,” Lena hums. She retreats, giving her a very obvious once-over. “I hope I don’t have to wait _too_ long for the rest.”

The harsh, trembling breath Kara emits in response is almost satisfying enough to be considered a third gift.

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of people like to headcanon Kara – and a lot of the other characters – as Jewish, and that's really cool! I'm not religious at all, so this was written purely in the spirit of Christmas as a holiday to spend time with family and be generous, indeterminate of any particular sort of faith/belief, which is how I celebrate it. (Long live Jewish Kara headcanons though, tbh.) 
> 
> If you absolutely hated it and want to send me mean anon messages, I'm @grammarkid on Tumblr, too. Happy holidays, everyone!


End file.
